


A Painted Life

by ArgylePirateWD



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, John Reese Lives, Multi, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Finale, Root | Samantha Groves Lives, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgylePirateWD/pseuds/ArgylePirateWD
Summary: Grace, Harold, and John get their happily ever after





	A Painted Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [st_aurafina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/gifts).

Harold's voice carries from the living room throughout the small cottage, the passionate rise and fall of him reading to John, moving with practiced ease over words small and large. _Dracula_ this time. He still reaches for classic horror the last week of October, it seems.

Grace pauses in the kitchen doorway, smiling, and she closes her eyes and leans against the doorframe and _listens_. Harold's voice has always been one of her favorite things about him—his eyes and his voice. The unique sound of it, the cadence of it, the eloquence. The way it shapes every word, giving even the tiniest of syllables character and texture. The way he wields it as deftly as everything else, the myriad shifts in timbre, all of it.

Sometimes, it still catches her off guard to hear him speaking, leaves her breathless and frozen in place with renewed surprise and delight as she hears the precious sound of him talking. Whether he's reading or talking to her or John or their menagerie of pets, or saying _"Good morning, my darlings,"_ as she and John bombard him with kisses, it's like a dream. Even with her burrowed in a cardigan she bought him last month, the warm and recent scent of him permeating the jewel blue cashmere wrapped tight around her, it doesn't feel real. But it is.

Somehow, this _is_ her life.

The loud whistle of the kettle punctures her reverie, and she hurries to quiet the annoying thing and pour water in the big teapot. Harold's sencha is already steeping, turning the water in its own little glass pot yellow-green. This one's for her and John.

She and John like black tea better—maybe it's the coffee addict in them both. No matter how much the silly man insisted he was fine with anything, she didn't miss how John drained cups of fruity Darjeeling or spicy chai or sturdy Irish Breakfast much faster than Harold's green. Today, she's been reaching for the Assam, rich and complex and fragrant. Its strength cuts through the rainy day gloom pretty well.

Except there's not much gloom to be found—not here. It's a very good day. No one woke up early from nightmares. No one woke up from pain, even though there's a brisk chill in the autumn air and the rain's pouring outside. No number from The Machine, but that's nothing unusual—they've only gotten one since they moved out here. Except for a barrage of memes and animal videos from Root to Harold that made him, for once, turn off his phone and computer, all has been quiet.

The house smells of chocolate and baking sweets, the scent wafting from the oven full of cookies John decided to make. Chocolate chunk, one of her many favorites, studded with—if she knows John as well as she thinks he does—far more pieces of chocolate than the recipe called for.

She and Harold both groped John's butt as he bent over to put the cookies in the oven—her hand on one cheek, Harold's on the other. She grins at the memory. How could they not? John has a nice ass, and that knowing, amused smirk on his face when he turned around and saw her and Harold's matching innocent looks had made it even more worth it.

Then, John gathered her and Harold into his arms like something precious and gave them both kisses that tasted of the sweet and buttery bites of cookie dough he'd been sneaking. Harold grumbled without heat about salmonella and called John "Mr. Reese" again in a chiding tone, earning him well-deserved retorts about him being a spoilsport from her and John. But germs didn't stop him from accepting another kiss. Harold's not as much of a curmudgeon as he thinks he is.

Sometimes she thinks of John as their missing puzzle piece. What she and Harold had was lovely the first time around, cathartic the second, but full of conflict and old wounds. She was angry. He was apologetic, defeated, lost. Then John showed up. He was battered and bandaged but alive, with crutches under his arms, the leash to a raggedy red shih-tzu in hand, and the news that he wasn't the only presumed dead member of Harold's little team who'd survived.

Grace is still really glad she and Harold were living in a one bedroom apartment back then. Only one bed, no way was she letting anyone who'd ever been shot sleep on the floor, no way were they letting her sleep there, either...and it worked out.

If her life were one of her paintings, today it'd be full of warm colors, soft oranges and yellows and golds suffused with bright light, nevermind the gray cast over everything from the rain. The same colors that cover their walls. She'd try to capture the glow of happiness thrumming through her body on a canvas and fail happily, because it's too big, too much. There isn't a canvas in the universe that's big enough to accommodate how she feels these days, nor any colors that would match.

She feels happy—no, happy isn't a big enough word. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she feels _good_, elation warm and sweet and light throughout her entire being. It's bone deep, soul deep, so vast and consuming she's not sure it even has a name. Maybe she should ask Harold, or his Machine. Surely one of them could tell her if there's a word that fits this.

Her phone buzzes, the timer going off for Harold's tea. Pour and sweeten—she's made Harold's tea so many times since her brother mailed her that first tin of sencha. She didn't like it much, but Harold did. That tin holds her paintbrushes now, one of the few precious trinkets she packed for Italy, just like the de Chirico mug from John holds her pencils. Sometimes the little things are the biggest.

She decides to bring Harold's tea to him now, instead of waiting until hers and John's is ready, just as an excuse to see both of them faster. As expected, she finds both men on the couch. Harold sits in the corner, making his way through his book, with John's head pillowed on Harold's lap. It's an awkward fit for John, but he manages it, his long, long legs folded until he fits on the small sofa, his gray sweatpants creeping up his scar-streaked calves.

One of Harold's hands cards through John's hair in slow, rhythmic strokes, leaving John with closed eyes and a blissful little smile on his face. On John's chest, a ball of black fluff that's more fur than kitten lies curled up beneath John's big hands, one of John's thumbs moving over its tiny, chubby body. He and Harold have been bickering all week about what to name John's "newest stray," which is better than Harold insisting that they don't need a cat when they have two dogs. But he's warmed up to the cat. It didn't take long.

It's taking him a little longer to warm up to happiness, to get used to it, but she thinks he's finally getting there. Even for her, it's been hard to wrap her brain around being so purely happy, around having a life that's full of love again, that's better than she ever imagined. She's getting there. They're all getting there. It's not easy, but good art rarely is. The rough edges are getting blurred away, taking them from puzzle to painting, and soon the painting that is their life will be what it should be.

Harold's mug is too hot to hold for too long. She doesn't need her imagination to know what will happen when she walks over to him. John will notice her first, will peer at her through his eyelashes and wave a finger or two. He'll try to move for her, like always, and she won't let him, like always. She'd rather curl up in her chair with her sketchpad and look.

She'll need a new pad soon. Hers is already nearly full of drawings of Harold and John. She can't help herself—that urge to capture this overwhelming, indescribable joy in her life and immortalize it through art never goes away. And she's retired, like them. Sure, she still sells an illustration every now and then, but she can draw and paint whatever she wants, whenever she wants, without worrying about money now. She always seems to want to draw and paint her life.

Today will make a good drawing—Harold reading, his face full of emotion, his pale hand buried in John's dark gray hair. John basking in their calm and quiet existence, his long, long black eyelashes skimming his cheeks, his lips curved in a smile. Their shih-tzu and their golden retriever snoring in a corner. Their happy little cat. Their happy little life.

She gives Harold his tea, steals kisses from him and John both, and gets ready to enjoy the rest of the day.


End file.
